Boston Calling

When I was 7 months pregnant I got the crazy idea that we should go to Boston shortly after our baby was born so we could meet the Maxfield twins, visit my parents, and see both the Maxfields and Gessells before they move away from Boston. We bought the tickets and just hoped everything with our newborn would be fine to travel and the twins would have arrived all healthy. 

So, one day before Camille turned 5 weeks old we all boarded a plane to Boston. The flight was fine. Our girls have flown numerous times. Sadie has flown to Boston 6 times and Elise 5 times. What we didn't count on was Elise waking up at 3 AM the first night to barf all over Daniel. Rough start to the trip. You can always count on me to report sleep conditions, and they were not good during our trip. All 3 kids slept terribly. Good thing we still managed to have a great time.

I attempted to organize my thousands of pictures into a few categories.

Addy

Addy is the most squishable baby ever. I just want to reach through the screen and hug her. Good thing we are seeing her in a few days.

Sadie really enjoyed trying to get Adelaide to crawl and walk.



 One of Addy's favorite things to do while we were there was holding onto adults hands and cruise. This is me and Addy. I think that's the only picture of me from the trip.

Chuck E Cheese

Papa has started a great tradition of Chuck E Cheese trips when we visit Boston. Sadie expects it now. One evening while the John sisters and their babies visited, the rest of the adults and kids headed to the land of cheap games and cardboard pizza.

Uncle Boom

Uncle Tony just happened to be in Boston for work the week we were there. He came over multiple times to hang out.

So at 5 weeks old Camille had met nearly all of her John extended family.
The rest of Anthony's family will just have to come to Utah to meet her. :)

The Twins
Nolan got to come home from the hospital the day after we flew in. Derek had already been home for a couple weeks. We wasted no time going to introduce ourselves. Sadie keeps talking about she wishes we could have twins. The twins look similar, but like brothers, not like identical twins. Once Meredith pointed out all the differences I had no trouble telling them apart. In this one above Derek is on the left and Nolan is on the right giving the camera a wave.

The cousin triplets. Born within 36 hours of each other.

Children's Museum




 On the rainiest day we headed downtown to the Children's museum- another tradition when visiting my parents.
 
 

 Elise was SO grumpy. The only 2 things that made her happy were putting those plastic vegetables into bins using chopsticks and hugging little bird characters.

Oh, and she also enjoyed when Nana pulled her on this chair/pulley system. She insisted only Nana could pull the rope and then she wanted to sit on it and eat snacks. Camille slept the entire time we were there. Sadie finally went in the climbing structure. This maze goes up 3 floors. It was one of my favorite things about the Children's Museum when I was a kid. Sadie is in the bottom, middle of the frame.


Joey's Park

We went to the park 5 times during our visit. 3 of the visits were to Joey's Park. This was one of my favorite parks as a kid, but it was falling apart so the town all got together and donated their time to build it. I am not sure if donations paid for the materials, but the park is amazing. Similar to the one from my childhood, but even better.



Of course Elise visits this amazing park and chooses to walk across big rocks for an hour. And that picture below of Lou and Wes is just the cutest.


One of the coolest things about the park is the zipline. Both Sadie and Elise went on it. We were nervous Elise would let go when it bounced around at the end, but she did awesome.

 
Addy was a good sport and hung out at all the parks with us, despite not getting much enjoyment out of it.

One night we found a basketball and the kids took turns dunking. A high point in all their lives, for sure.

 We also attended Grove Street park, just down the block from my parents' house. Elise insisted on walking on all the rock walls on the way home. You can see them as little specks in the picture below.


Weston
 
One of the biggest highlights was getting to play with Weston. Sadie and Weston played together a lot, while Elise was very hot and cold with him.


 Weston actually slept over at my parents house a few nights so that the cousins could continue their play and the Maxfields could adjust to having both twins home.





Canobie Lake Park
One day we went up to Canobie Lake Park, a small amusement park in New Hampshire. My mom had a fieldtrip there with her physics students so we got free tickets. The kiddie ride section was empty so the girls could choose whatever they wanted and not wait in line. Sadie was tall enough to go on bigger rides, and she did a couple, but she wanted me to go on them and my stomach can't handle any kind of ride anymore, so kiddie rides it was.



Elise was a little nervous on the first few rides. You can see her nervous face in the 2 pictures. The trip ended in tragedy when both girls threw tantrums about going to the water park area. We warned them we'd be going home if they didn't stop. They didn't stop so home we went. Sadie still talks about how disappointed she was.

Cousins Class of 2032


 These 4 crazy kids will all be in the same grade. So fun! We will be recreating this photo for years to come. Derek is already about the same weight as Camille, 3 weeks later.

Nana & Papa's house
 
Sadie and Elise enjoyed playing with all the toys Nana and Papa's basement offered, as well as bugging everyone there to play with them.

Bryce and Addy frequently chased the girls and Weston, which was thrilling fun for everyone.

One night we did a fashion show with all the old dress-up clothes. I was the "dresser"- person who put the clothes on the models. The girls had multiple knock-down, drag-out fights over that fan. I was ready to just throw it away.

Matching Cousins


My mom bought matching shirts for all the girl cousins. Elise, of course, refused to be in the nice pictures. So here are 3 of the 5 John girl cousins (Lauren was in KC, but my mom bought her a shirt as well).

Camille

 Oh, yes, and by the end of our trip Camille was sleeping decently and waking up much more during the day.

BBQ birthday

We have had very few friends over since we moved into our house last year. My excuse is that I was pregnant and feeling terrible the first few months and then it was basketball season and then I had a baby. We enjoy having friends over for BBQ's and such, so we decided to have some families over in the name of Elise getting somewhat of a real birthday party (3 weeks late). 

We put out the kiddie pool and some sprinklers while the adults mingled/prepared/ate food. The kids ran back and forth between the backyard and the basement. 

Lou opened each present very enthusiastically and proclaimed everything was just what she wanted.

 The menfolk were playing cornhole when they heard a baby bird fall out of it's nest. They worked together to get that bird back in the nest without actually touching the bird, all while the mama bird flew around squawking and dive bombing them. 

 At the end of the night we did sparklers, which was a bit crazy with 7 kids between the ages of 2 and 5. The sparklers made Elise a little nervous but she loved them. You can see her nervous face 2 pictures down. 

We hope this will be the first of many get togethers at our house this summer. 

Oh, and happy belated birthday Lou!

May Days

Here are some more pictures from the month of May. I am aware that I should/could do separate blog posts for many of these but I am too lazy. 

I am going to miss it when Sadie grows out of the sign-making stage. On this particular day Elise had faked both a cough and a stomach flu. When I gave her some fake sympathy Sadie ran off to make this sign. She told me the black thing in the middle is an Anaconda. Obviously.

 I let Sadie feed Camille a bottle and she did a great job. 

Kiddie pool fun. This turned into adding the plastic slide, which lead to a picnic when they got hungry, which turned into inviting the neighbor kids over, which lead to my girls at the neighbors house when there "too many wasps" in our backyard. All of that meant 6 hours straight outside and only 2 applications of sunscreen, which lead to some bright pink skin. Oops. 

Doesn't everyone sleep like this?

Towels drying on the back deck as the sun goes down after a long day of sprinklers, kiddie pools and popsicles. The stuff dream summers are made of.

Camille the Turtle

Best sister friends forever. So much giggling went on here, even though Lou kept falling off the back. One of those moments I want to remember for a long time.

Ballet Camp, as I think Sadie called it. I captured one of the few times Lou actually did what Sadie wanted. 

Someone left a mason jar of 5 fish on our front porch one evening. We have no idea who did this. When Sadie woke up in the morning--she was already in bed when we received the fish-- she came running in to tell us there was a fish in the kitchen. After I questioned her counting ability she lead me to the kitchen where I found 4 fish floating in the water with one fish happily swimming around the bottom. Sadie named the lone survivor "Sadie" and she is still alive today- 2 weeks later. 

Middle Sister

Elise has been promoted/demoted (depending on how you look at it) to the middle sister. She likes Millie, but she doesn't ask to hold her like Sadie does. She will run over to her and pull her eyelids open several times each day. She will also lay on top of her and say in the squeakiest voice "Hi Camille Camilles".  She gladly covers Camille's entire body (including her face) with blankets. Whenever she is upset she now wails for "Camille" in a voice akin to Marlon Brando yelling for "Stella". 

Elise has been struggling the most in the behavior department. She is very up and down. She has started doing sneaky things like drawing on walls while I am nursing, pushing chairs up to the pantry to eat candy, and hiding in her closet to play with my phone. Navigating her new life as the middle sister is proving to be a bit difficult, but I have confidence she will figure it out with the enthusiasm that she approaches most things in life. 

 This is Elise's new favorite toy. She walks around with it strapped over her shoulders.

When I took Camille's 1 month pictures Elise would not leave us alone. So I let her join us. She happily demonstrated the "love" she gives.